Follow Up on SD Cards

After my flash drive died I finally followed up on my idea of using an SD Card instead. The drive died after being knocked one too many times while plugged into my laptop.

I bought a Dick Smith brand card as I wanted to get one right away after the flash drive died. It claims to be a Class 4 card but so far it seems to be extremely slow when writing data from my computer onto the card. This is rather disappointing.

And if you don't push the card into the SD slot fast enough it may not mount. At first I thought the card was a total dud!

Copying from the card to my laptop does appear to be acceptably fast. Here are the stats from XBench:



Comparing the results to those from a Lexar flashdrive and a 2005 vintage Sandisk SD card these stats seem to combine the weaknesses of both those systems.

SD Memory Cards

In the last couple of years I have used a USB flash drive like this:

as my primary computer data storage and I've used the hard drive on my laptop and office computer as data back-up and the location for the operating system and applications. This means that I can easily transport all my data from office to home and back without having to copy heaps of files back and forth and remember which ones I've updated and without having a hard drive dangling off my laptop. The applications etc. are the same in both locations and all the data goes with me. The Lexar 16GB hard-drive pictured is fast and almost indestructible. But I'm rapidly running out of space and they don't make a 32GB model. I can't find another small, fast, and robust drive with a 32GB capacity. So I'm thinking of using something like this in future instead:

It's an SD card more commonly used in cameras etc. MacBooks and iMacs both have SD card slots and according to Apple there should be no problems even in installing the operating system on such a card. For computers without a slot card readers can be bought very cheaply.

So are there any drawbacks to this idea?

Flash Drives vs. Memory Cards

Since writing my previous post about memory devices I tested a class 2 (probably) Sandisk SD card from a digital camera vs. my Lexar flashdrive using the free XBench software. I was using my MacBook Pro for the tests and just plugging the Sandisk card into the SD slot on the laptop. Here are the results. First the flash drive:



And here is the memory card:



Data can be read faster off this flash drive than off the memory card but writing to the memory card is faster than to the flash drive. This greater uniformity of read-write speeds seems to be a feature of memory cards. These speeds seem to be reflected in real world applications. It takes a lot longer to copy files to the flash drive than vice versa. The MacBook's hard drive is mostly faster than either portable device:

SD Card Speeds Up with More Data on it?

I recently bought an SD card to use to move data between my computers at home and on campus. I was a bit dissapointed at the speed of reading and writing to the memory. It took hours to upload all my data onto the card the first time around. But now I noticed that files seem to copy MUCH faster. I put this down to the data on the card now being organized and, therefore may be more of the faster "sequential" reading and writing was happening. I retested the card now and found it is faster on all functions than it was initially:



Strange, but good news.

Most Popular Posts, 2011

What were the most popular posts on Stochastic Trend in 2011? It was pretty random :)

1. 2009 Journal Citation Report Released (1525 hits). People are very interested in learning what are the top journals. Even if the report is a year out of date.

2. IAmScientist (939 hits). Also they are interested in scientific social networking.

3. Marginal Cost Curve for Crude Oil (606 hits). As oil prices rose again, the cost of oil production remains a popular topic.

4. How Does CSIRO Compare to Australian Universities? (544 hits). This is the most popular post actually written in 2011. Discussion of a paper comparing CSIRO's publication performance with the top Australian universities.

5. ERA Ranked Journal List is Out(368 hits). Even though the ranked journal list was abolished a lot of people are still using it.

6. Energy Mix and Energy Intensity (343 hits). Down from 3rd place last year, this is the most popular post on my own research content.

7. How Does PLoS ONE Have Such a High Impact Factor? (308 hits). This post is only a couple of months old but is already one of the more popular ones.

8. The Ecological Economics Critique (237 hits). Down from 4th place last year. Another part of my serialization of this paper.

8. Synthesizing Diesel Fuel Using Cyanobacteria (220 hits).

9. SD Memory Cards (214 hits).

So, only three posts actually written in 2011. I'll have to take some lessons from this when writing in 2012!

Other Emissions of Greenhouse Gases and Aerosols

I only cover three other types of emissions besides energy related CO2. I thought of including black carbon but in the end decided to skip it as I already have too many papers. I resisted the temptation to try to include two of my papers in the collection, though I ended up discussing my paper more below :) I also include a graphic that will not be appearing in our book. It is from Smith et al. (2011) and compares the various estimates of sulfur emissions.

Deforestation and land-use change is an important source of emissions of CO2. Levels of emissions are much lower than from energy related sources, more stable over time, but also very uncertain. Houghton (2003) presents estimates of CO2 emissions from land-use change from 1850 to 2000, globally and by region. In general the tend rises from 1 to 2 Gt C over the 150 years with an acceleration in the trend around 1950 in common with emissions from energy related sources. Therefore, there is a clear link with economic growth. Tropical deforestation, particularly in Asia and Latin America dominates. In recent decades there is net reforestation in developed countries. Unusually, the data are increasingly uncertain in recent decades with estimates from different researchers varying substantially (Houghton, 2010).

The third most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and the second most important anthropogenic source is methane. Relatively little work has been done on CH4 in comparison to CO2. Stern and Kaufmann (1996) used available data to reconstruct the first time series of historic emissions from 1860-1993. They found that anthropogenic emissions had increased from 80 million tonnes of carbon in 1860 to 380 million in 1990. The relative importance of the various emissions sources changed over time though rice farming and livestock husbandry remained the two most important sources.

Offsetting the radiative forcing due to greenhouse gases is a significant negative forcing due to aerosols derived from sulphur oxide (primarily dioxide) emissions. These aerosols do not persist in the atmosphere for usually more than a few days and so the source of emissions is important and effects are localized though they spread far beyond the sources to affect neighbouring countries. The main sources of anthropogenic sulphur emissions are the combustion of coal and metal smelting. Stern (2006) showed that that after increasing fairly steadily from 1850 to the early 1990s global emissions began to trend downwards. Emissions in Western Europe and North America as well as Japan had already been trending down since 1970 primarily due to policies to reduce acid rain (Stern, 2005). But this decline was offset by growth in other regions. Following 1990, there was a dramatic reduction in emissions from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The likelihood that emissions will continue to decline in the future will contribute to future warming. Whereas Stern (2006) uses a combination of previously published data and model estimates, Smith et al. (2011) provide an inventory of sulphur emissions from 1850 to 2005 using a uniform methodology. The results largely confirm Stern’s (2006) findings though the levels are generally lower by a few percent.

References

Houghton, R. A. (2003) Revised estimates of the annual net flux of carbon to the atmosphere from changes in land use and land management 1850-2000, Tellus 55B: 378-390.

Houghton, R. A. (2010) How well do we know the flux of CO2 from land use change? Tellus 62B: 337-351.

Smith, S. J., J. van Ardenne, Z. Klimont, R. J. Andres, A. Volke, S. D. Arias (2011) Anthropogenic sulfur dioxide emissions: 1850-2005, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 11: 1101-1116.

Stern D. I. (2005) Beyond the environmental Kuznets curve: Diffusion of sulfur-emissions-abating technology, Journal of Environment and Development 14(1), 101-124.

Stern D. I. (2006) Reversal in the trend of global anthropogenic sulfur emissions, Global Environmental Change 16(2), 207-220.

Stern D. I. and R. K. Kaufmann (1996) Estimates of global anthropogenic methane emissions 1860-1993, Chemosphere 33, 159-176.

Reading List on Trends, Drivers, and Forecasts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions etc.

Back in February I mentioned I was putting a review together on  drivers and trends of greenhouse gas emissions. In fact this is for one of those Edward Elgar collections of classic journal articles in a research area titled Climate Change and the World Economy. After a long break I am back working on it. The list is now a lot longer, thanks in part to some of the help I got then. Now I need to cut it down to about twenty key papers but I'll include some of the others in my discussion. Any suggestions are still welcome.

This is just 1/3 of the overall book. My coeditors are Frank Jotzo and Leo Dobes who will cover mitigation, impacts, and adaptation. Citation numbers are from Google Scholar.

Aldy, Joseph E. (2006) Per capita carbon dioxide emissions: convergence or divergence? Environmental and Resource Economics 33(4): 533-555. Citations = 87

Arrhenius, S. (1908) Worlds in the Making, Harper & Brothers, New York. Arrhenius, Svante (1896) On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground, Philosophical Magazine Series 5 41 (April): 237-276. Cites = 1163

Ausubel, J. H. & W. D. Nordhaus (1983) A review of estimates of future carbon dioxide emissions, in T. F. Malone (ed.) Changing Climate: Report of the Carbon Dioxide Assessment Committee, National Academy Press, Washington DC. Chapter 2.2 pp153-185. Around 60 cites

Brock, William A. and M. Scott Taylor (2010) The green Solow model, Journal of Economic Growth 15:127–153. Citations: 218 including NBER Working Paper Brookes, L. (1990) The greenhouse effect: the fallacies in the energy efficiency solution, Energy Policy 18(2): 199-201. Cites = 141

Callendar, G. S. (1938) The artificial production of carbon dioxide and its influence on temperature, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 64: 223-240. Cites = 387

Canadell, J. G., C. Le Quéré, M. R. Raupach, C. B. Field, E. T. Buitenhuis, P. Ciais, T. J. Conway, N. P. Gillett, R. A. Houghton, and G. Marland (2007) Contributions to accelerating atmospheric CO2 growth from economic activity, carbon intensity, and efficiency of natural sinks, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(47): 18866–18870. Cites = 850

d'Arge, Ralph C., William D. Schulze, and David S. Brookshire (1982) Carbon dioxide and intergenerational choice, American Economic Review 72(2): 251-256. Cites = 76

d’Arge, R. C. et al. (1975) Economic and Social Measures of Biologic and Climatic Change, U.S. Department of Transportation.

Dietz, Thomas, and Eugene A. Rosa (1997) Effects of population and affluence on CO2 emissions, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 94(1): 175 -179. Citations = 196

Edmonds, Jae and John Reilly (1983) Global energy and CO2 to the year 2050, The Energy Journal 4(3): 21-48. Cites = 113

Edmonds, Jae and John Reilly (1983) A long-term global energy-economic model of carbon dioxide release from fossil fuel use, Energy Economics 5(2): 74-88. Cites = 132

Ehrlich, P. R. and J. P. Holdren (1971) Impact of population growth, Science 171(3977): 1212-1217. Cites = 1094

Fonkych, Kateryna and Robert Lempert (2005) Assessment of Environmental Kuznets Curves and Socioeconomic Drivers in IPCC's SRES Scenarios, The Journal of Environment Development 14: 27-47. Cites = 13

Garnaut, Ross, Stephen Howes, Frank Jotzo, and Peter Sheehan (2008) Emissions in the Platinum Age: the implications of rapid development for climate-change mitigation, Oxford Review of Economic Policy 24(2): 377-401. Cites = 56

Grübler, Arnulf and Nebojsa Nakicénovic (1996) Decarbonizing the global energy system, Technological Forecasting and Social Change 53: 97-110. Cites = 56

Grübler, Arnulf, Nebojsa Nakicénovic, and David G. Victor (1999) Dynamics of energy technologies and global change, Energy Policy 27: 247-280. Cites = 409

Heil, M. T., & Selden, T. M. (2001). Carbon emissions and economic development: Future trajectories based on historical experience. Environment and Development Economics, 6, 63-83. Cites = 69

Henriques, Sofia Teives, and Astrid Kander (2010) The modest environmental relief resulting from the transition to a service economy, Ecological Economics 70(2): 271-282. Citations: 6

Holtz-Eakin, Douglas and Thomas M. Selden (1995) Stoking the fires? CO2 emissions and economic growth, Journal of Public Economics 57(1): 85-101. Cites = 710

Houghton, R. A. (1991) Tropical deforestation and atmospheric carbon dioxide, Climatic Change 19: 99-118. Cites = 291

Houghton, R. A. (2003) Revised estimates of the annual net flux of carbon to the atmosphere from changes in land use and land management 1850-2000, Tellus 55B: 378-390. Cites = 708

Keeling, C. D. (1973) Industrial production of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and limestone, Tellus 25: 174-198. Cites = 209

Jotzo F., P. J. Burke, P. J. Wood, A. Macintosh, and D. I. Stern (2012) Decomposing the 2010 global carbon dioxide emissions rebound, Nature Climate Change 2(4), 213-214. Cites = 2

Kunnas, J. (2011) How to proceed after Copenhagen, Electronic Green Journal 1(31). Cites = 1

Leggett, J., W. J. Pepper, and R. J. Swart (1992) Emissions scenarios for the IPCC: an update, in: J. T. Houghton, B. A. Callander, and S. K. Varney (eds.) Climate Change 1992: The Supplementary Report to the IPCC Scientific Assessment, Cambridge University Press. Chapter A3, 69-96. Cites = 433

McKibbin, Warwick J., David Pearce, and Alison Stegman (2004) Can the IPCC SRES Be Improved? Energy and Environment 15(3): 351-362. Cites = 15

Morita, Tsuneyuki; Nebojsa Nakicenovic, and John Robinson (2000) Overview of mitigation scenarios for global climate stabilization based on new IPCC emission scenarios (SRES), Environmental Economics & Policy Studies 3(2): 65-88. Cites = 45

Munksgaard, Jesper and Klaus Alsted Pedersen (2001) CO2 accounts for open economies: producer or consumer responsibility? Energy Policy 29(4): 327–334. Cites = 263

Nakićenović, Nebojša (2000) Greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, Technological Forecasting and Social Change 65(2): 149–166. Cites = 40

Nakicenovic, Nebojsa et al. (2000) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios: A Special Report of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press. Cites = 2824

Nakicenovic, N., P. Kolp, K. Riahi, M. Kainuma, and T. Hansoka (2006) Assessment of emissions scenarios revisited, Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 7(3): 137-173. Cites = 39

Nakicenovic, Nebojsa, Nadejda Victor, and Tsuneyuki Morita (1998) Emissions scenarios database and review of scenarios, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 3(2-4): 95-131. Cites = 46

Nordhaus, W. D. and G. W. Yohe (1983) Future paths of energy and carbon dioxide emissions, in T. F. Malone (ed.) Changing Climate: Report of the Carbon Dioxide Assessment Committee, National Academy Press, Washington DC. Chapter 2.1, pp87-152. Cites = 123

Pepper, W., J. Leggett, R. Swart, J. Wasson, J. Edmonds, and I. Mintzer (1992) Emissions scenarios for the IPCC. An update: assumptions, methodology and results, in Climate Change 1992: Supplementary Report to the IPCC Scientific Assessment, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Cites = 535

Penner, J. E., H. Eddleman, T. Novakov (1993) Towards the development of a global inventory for black carbon emissions, Atmospheric Environment 27A(8): 1277-1295. Cites = 265

Pepper, William, Wiley Barbour, Alexei Sankovski, and Barbara Braatz (1998) No-policy greenhouse gas emission scenarios: revisiting IPCC 1992, Environmental Science & Policy 1: 289-312. Cites =12

Perry, A. M., K. J. Araj, W. Fulkerson, D. J. Rose, M. M. Miller, and R. M. Rotty (1982) Energy supply and demand implications of CO2, Energy 7(12): 991-1004. Cites = 19.

Peters, Glen P. and Edgar G. Hertwich (2008) CO2 Embodied in International Trade with Implications for Global Climate Policy, Environmental Science and Technology 42(5): 1401-1407. Cites = 345

Plass, G. N. (1956) The carbon dioxide theory of climatic change, Tellus 8(2): 140-154. Cites = 166

Plassmann, Florenz and Neha Khanna (2006) Preferences, Technology, and the Environment: Understanding the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis, Amer. J. Agr. Econ. 88(3) (August 2006): 632–643. Cites = 23

Raupach, Michael R., Gregg Marland, Philippe Ciais, Corinne Le Quéré, Josep G. Canadell, Gernot Klepper, Christopher B. Field (2007) Global and regional drivers of accelerating CO2 emissions, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(24): 10288-10293. Cites = 798

Revelle, R. & Suess, H. (1957). Carbon dioxide exchange between atmosphere and ocean, and the question of an increase of atmospheric CO2 during the past decade. Tellus 9(18), 18-27. Cites = 603

Riahi, Keywan, Arnulf Grübler, Nebojsa Nakicenovic (2007) Scenarios of long-term socio-economic and environmental development under climate stabilization, Technological Forecasting & Social Change 74: 887–935. Cites = 217

Ruddiman, William F. (2003) The anthropogenic greenhouse era began thousands of years ago, Climatic Change 61(3): 261-293. Cites = 522

Schmalensee, R., T. M. Stoker and R. A. Judson (1998), ‘World Carbon Dioxide Emissions: 1950-2050’, Review of Economics and Statistics, 80, 15-27. Cites = 373

Shafik N., Economic development and environmental quality: an econometric analysis, Oxford Economic Papers 46, 757-773 (1994). Cites = 828

Smith, S. J., H. Pitcher, and T. M. L. Wigley (2005) Future sulfur dioxide emissions, Climatic Change 73: 267-318. Cites = 39

Smith, S. J., J. van Ardenne, Z. Klimont, R. J. Andres, A. Volke, S. D. Arias (2011) Anthropogenic sulfur dioxide emissions: 1850-2005, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 11: 1101-1116. Cites = 47

Steinberger, Julia K., J. Timmons Roberts, Glen P. Peters, and Giovanni Baiocchi (2012) Pathways of human development and carbon emissions embodied in trade, Nature Climate Change 2: 81–85. Cites = 3

Stern D. I. (2006) Reversal in the trend of global anthropogenic sulfur emissions, Global Environmental Change 16(2), 207-220. Cites = 107

Stern D. I. (2010) Between estimates of the emissions-income elasticity, Ecological Economics 69, 2173-2182. Cites = 11 Stern D. I. and R. K. Kaufmann (1996) Estimates of global anthropogenic methane emissions 1860-1993, Chemosphere 33, 159-176. Cites = 66

Strazicich, Mark C. and John A. List (2003) Are CO2 emission levels converging among industrial countries? Environmental and Resource Economics 24(3): 263-271. Citations = 79

Streets, D. G., T. C. Bond, T. Lee, and C. Jang (2004) On the future of carbonaceous aerosol emissions, Journal of Geophysical Research 109: D24212. Cites = 93

van Vuuren, Detlef P., Jae Edmonds, Mikiko Kainuma, Keywan Riahi, Allison Thomson, Kathy Hibbard, George C. Hurtt, Tom Kram, Volker Krey, Jean-Francois Lamarque, Toshihiko Masui, Malte Meinshausen, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Steven J. Smith, and Steven K. Rose (2011) The representative concentration pathways: an overview, Climatic Change 109(1-2): 5-31. Cites = 91

Vollebergh, Herman R.J., Bertrand Melenberg, and Elbert Dijkgraaf (2009) Identifying reduced-form relations with panel data: The case of pollution and income, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 58(1): 27-42. Cites: 21

Wagner, M., 2008. The carbon Kuznets curve: A cloudy picture emitted by bad econometrics. Resource and Energy Economics 30, 388-408. Cites = 104

Westerlund, Joakim and Syed A. Basher (2008) Testing for convergence in carbon dioxide emissions using a century of panel data, Environmental and Resource Economics 40:109–120. Citations = 35

Yang, Christopher and Stephen H. Schneider (1998) Global carbon dioxide emissions scenarios: sensitivity to social and technological factors in three regions, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 2: 373–404. Google = 34